Blogging for Traffic

Traffic is crucial to the success of your online business.

Internet Traffic and its sources continue to fascinate today’s professionals. Many site owners, newbies and long-timers, have followed the recent growth of social media sites–Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn–and with all the hoopla in the news about social media, it comes as a big surprise that the majority of Internet Traffic still comes from search engines. Even with this knowledge, many professionals are still perplexed about “how” to grow the traffic to their company web site. Some strategies include advertising, pay-per-click, social media, search engine optimization to outright begging.

A web site offers numerous revenue streams and the W3 is loaded with information that explains how to host, build, and launch a web site. But without traffic, the benefits of having a web site are lost. Yes, the Internet churns out revenue opportunities like there’s no tomorrow, but only if you have Internet traffic and a constant flow of it. So, how does a small business owner build traffic so that he/she has a chance at growing their business online?

The answer? Blogging.

Why is blogging an important tool to grow Internet traffic?

Internet traffic sources include search engines, social media, referring sites (inbound links) and other sources. The Internet consumes fresh, juicy content faster than many people consume chips. And by adding a blog to your web site, you provide an avenue by which valuable content can be posted online, indexed by search engines, linked to by other web sites, read by your site’s visitors who will, hopefully, share your content with their friends and colleagues. Yes, blogging is the key to building a loyal following to your web site. Post insightful, authoritative, proprietary content on your site–consistently–and, in time, your web site’s analytics will show that your Internet traffic is growing.

What is there to blog about?

Blog about information that is relevant to your company’s industry. The majority of bloggers on the Internet blog about personal musing, technology, Internet marketing, politics, business, health, travel, family. The list goes on and on, providing ample opportunities for bloggers.

What platform do bloggers use?

WordPress is used by 40% of all bloggers. It is easy to use and setup. Blogspot, Tumblr, Typepad, b2Evolution, and Squarspace are other blogging platforms that are popular.

Inbound links and other benefits of blogging

Wouldn’t it be nice if you checked your Alexa data and discovered that a couple of higher ranking sites linked to your site, asking nothing in return? Wouldn’t it be nice to attract inbound links without spending hours of each day sending “link-exchange” requests? It takes a lot for a higher ranked site to link to a lower ranked site. The owner of the higher ranked site may actually slip in search engine rankings, unless search engines recognize the value and quality of your site. And one way to establish that your web site is a high-quality site is by generating quality, useful content on your blog.

Blogging and social media

The most popular social networking sites include Facebook (28%), Twitter (26%), LinkedIn (4%) and others. By adding a “share” module to your articles, you make it easy for visitors to forward your articles to others. They can “like” your articles and then, their second and third tiered contacts can also view your content in order to further grow your Internet traffic following. As your blog grows, it builds momentum for your web site and your Internet traffic begins to grow off of itself. It’s a little like a snow-ball effect, which is great.

On days when your blog post is Retweeted on Twitter 20 times, or on a day when your post breaks into the top 20 diggs on digg.com, immediately follow up with more quality content. You’ll see your blog traffic jump from 20 visitors to 200 visitors in one day! The next day, make sure you post the best blog post you’ve ever written because at least some of those 200 new readers are going to return to see if that cool post was a fluke or your blog really is as good as it appears to be.

Bottom line? Blogs are Internet traffic bait. They’re useful in building a site community – a collection of fans that comes back daily. Blogs are easy to update so you can announce sales or specials without having to call in your programmer. And, blog posts create good-will because you’re providing solid, unbiased information, not a steaming pile of hype.

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